Eight
“OK,” I began helplessly, holding up my hands
towards Ben and Jasmine as Summer and her mates howled with laughter and wiggled off down the dinner hall. Lucy and Mel just sank their heads down on to the table as I spluttered: “We can explain, honest—”
“This had better be good,” Jasmine said.
“We’re listening,” Ben said.
I couldn’t read their faces at all.
“Right,” I said, wetting my lips and darting a frantic glance at my mates. But Lucy and Mel’s heads were firmly in their hands. It looked like I was going to get the full blame here – smack between the eyes.
“Well,” I began, “since it’s totally clear to everyone in the school that you guys are nuts about each other, we just maybe gave you a teensy little nudge back together. You’d have got there in the end,” I added hastily. “We just – didn’t have time to wait, with the Battle of the Bands in just a couple of weeks, and…I mean,” I continued, feeling a little bolder as they didn’t howl me down, “you should be thanking us, right?”
“Thanking you,” Ben repeated.
“Next you’ll be telling us that you somehow set us up when we joined the band too?” Jasmine said.
Mel cleared her throat. “Funny you should say that,” she mumbled.
“Are you really, really mad?” Lucy asked, peeping timidly at her brother from between her fingers.
“It was my little sister’s idea,” I burst out, seeing all my plans for winning the Battle of the Bands going up in smoke, “and I know you’re thinking: what kind of idiot listens to a seven-year-old? and you’re probably right – but we were that desperate! And you’re just dead good, both of you, and it was a real shame you didn’t make it past the qualifiers, Ben…”
I tailed off. Ben and Jasmine both had these looks on their faces that reminded me of Dad when I was telling him about the pink yoghurt.
“Are you – laughing at me?” I asked doubtfully.
“Yup,” said Mel, as Ben and Jasmine both fell about, holding their sides and totally wetting themselves. “I think they are, Col.”
So much for Summer Collins’ plan. Ben and Jasmine thought it was the funniest thing ever. I guess that’s love for you. We cracked on with our rehearsals, with Ben and Jasmine never wasting an opportunity to take the mick out of us for setting them up. I didn’t care. The song was going well at last, and having my crush and his girlfriend laughing at me was a small price to pay.
“Summer’s as sour as a lemon with toothache,” Mel said gleefully as we finished rehearsals for the week on Friday dinnertime.
“Good,” Lucy said. “First she nicked our song for the qualifiers, and then she tried to ruin our band for the final. I mean, how would she like it if we did that to her?”
That set me thinking. Summer had got away with too much since this whole Battle thing began – not to mention the way she’d set me up at the fashion show that time. Payback was way overdue.
“Have either of you heard Summer’s band practising this week?” I asked thoughtfully.
Mel pulled a face. “Yes, worse luck,” she said. “I’m telling you, they were like three cats in a bag. You push my buttons, baby,” she started singing in a squeaky Summer voice, “I love you true, you push my buttons baby, I love youuu…Lame or what?”
“Makes her sound like a pedestrian crossing,” Lucy giggled.
I almost fell over as a brilliant idea whooshed through me, tingling through to my fingertips. It was a blinder.
“I know how we can get Summer back!” I squealed. “She’s always stealing our ideas, right?” Mel and Lucy nodded.
“So,” I grinned, “let’s give her something to steal.”
The last lesson of the week was IT with Mr Rat. Mr Rat’s full name is Mr Ratnasinghe, but no one ever calls him that. He’s a really laid-back teacher, and he doesn’t mind much what we get up to during his lessons, so long as we got our work done.
Just like we’d hoped, Summer and her mates had already bagged terminals F, G and H, which stand by the window. The worst ones – the ones with dodgy mouses and scratched keyboards – stand in the next row, just in front of Summer. No one ever wants to sit there, which was part of the plan.
“Mr Rat?” I said in a low voice as we all shuffled into the classroom. “Can we sit at terminals N, O and P?”
Mr Rat looked surprised. Well, as surprised as Mr Rat ever gets, which involves him raising his eyebrows two millimetres. “You want to sit there?” he said. “Go ahead.”
This was Mel’s cue. “Oh, Mr Raat!” she wailed at the top of her voice.
Summer and her mates looked up.
“I can’t believe you’re making us sit there!” I added in my loudest, grumpiest voice.
Mr Rat looked confused. “But you—” he began.
“OK, whatever,” I snapped, cutting Mr Rat off and making a big deal out of flouncing towards the terminals with Mel and Lucy following me. Poor Mr Rat looked totally flummoxed.
Phase one of our plan had worked like a dream. Now it was time for phase two.
“But I want to wear the yellow one,” Mel said loudly to me as we worked through the spreadsheet on our screens. “It’ll look better for the gig than the red.”
“Ssshh,” Lucy hissed, pointing really obviously over her shoulder at Summer.
You could hear Summer’s ears flapping like mad behind us. Biting my lip so I didn’t laugh and give the game away, I whispered loudly: “No – we’ll do it like we said. Green for Lu, Red for you, Mel, and I’ll take the yellow. Got it?”
Then we bent our heads over our work and concentrated on not giggling for the rest of the lesson. There was no way Summer hadn’t heard us. But would she take the bait?
We’d arranged for a long rehearsal at Jasmine’s place on Saturday morning. I’m always interested in other people’s houses (nosey, Em would say), so it was brilliant seeing where Jasmine lived. It’s this old house right on the edge of Hartley, with a rambling garden full of apple trees and clutter and an old garage at the bottom where Jasmine plays guitar and hangs out with her mates.
“Help yourselves,” Jasmine said, switching on the garage light and pointing to a tray of biscuits and fruit beside a kettle.
It was pretty cool. Jasmine had these two old couches in one corner of the garage arranged around a packing crate covered with a bright cloth that acted as a table. She’d decorated the couches with cushions, and paintings and drawings were stuck all over the bare concrete walls. A collection of random stuff lay scattered over the table: a couple of pens, a big black watch, several CDs out of their boxes and sheaves of guitar music all heavily scribbled over with a pencil. At the far end of the garage was a knackered old drum kit – “My mum’s,” Jasmine explained – and more packing crates, this time with cushions on top for sitting on.
“Sorry about the mess.” Jasmine looked quite embarrassed as she cleared the top of the packing-crate table.
“This is wicked,” I said, gazing around. Em would be dead jealous if I had a place like this.
Ben was already at the drum kit, testing the cymbals. “Ready when you are,” he said, and launched into the intro of our song as we all scrambled into position.
We had the first verse down just right. But the second one started giving us problems.
“One more time,” Mel said, after we’d messed it up twice.
“The sea, the sea,” we sang obediently, “the sea and you, the sea can see that you’re untrue…”
“Sorry,” Jasmine said, looking angry with herself as she mucked up in the same place again. “It’s just that funny rhythm there…”
“Keep going,” Ben called over the pounding drums.
“You left the sand just like you planned,” we went on, “your life got messed, outta hand – you didn’t, didn’t stay in reach of paths that take you to the beach, ooh…Who’s sorry now? Who’s sorry now?”
Ben was having a bit of difficulty with the last two lines, which were supposed to build up and repeat after a skipped beat. I stood by the drums and went over it with him, thinking dreamily how nice he smelled, while Jasmine hunched, frowning over her guitar, and Mel and Lucy went to sit down on the packing-crate stools.
“Whoa!” Mel shouted, sliding off the packing crate she’d been sitting on as the wood broke and splintered underneath her.
We all rushed over to help Mel up.
“Jasmine, I’m really sorry…” Mel turned bright red with embarrassment as we stared at the mess of wood and sawdust on the floor.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jasmine said, hunkering down to check out the contents of the packing crate. “It’s just this dumb elephant of Mum’s inside. She hates it but can’t be bothered to get rid of it, so it just lives in here. Too bad you didn’t break it and all, Mel.”
More sawdust slid out of the broken packing crate. Suddenly, we could all see a red, blue and white ceramic elephant’s trunk. It looked familiar.
“I don’t believe it,” Mel said. “It looks just like—”
“—your mum’s fireplace elephant,” me and Lucy finished Mel’s sentence at the same time.
Ben and Jasmine watched us with puzzled expressions as we all fell to the ground and started pulling away the rest of the sawdust and packing materials, revealing the elephant in its full trumpeting glory. It was a perfect match for Mrs Palmer’s favourite ornament in the whole world.
“Did you say your mum hated this?” Mel said, scrambling to her feet and swinging round to Jasmine.
“Loathes it,” Jasmine said.
“Do you think maybe – I could have it?” Mel asked breathlessly.
Jasmine started to laugh. “Mum’ll think it’s Christmas if you take it,” she grinned. “Saves her a trip to the dump!”
